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Article: John Ford, the Unquiet Man: He Chewed a White Hankie.(Arts&Entertainment)(Review)
- Article from:
- The New York Observer (New York, NY)
- Article date:
- August 13, 2001
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 The New York Observer. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: James Harvey
Searching for John Ford, by Joseph McBride. St. Martin's Press, 812 pages, $40.
At one point in Preston Sturges' wonderful wartime farce, Hail the Conquering Hero (1944), the hero's mother is trying-in front of a crowd of neighbors in her kitchen-to dissuade her son from taking off his Marine uniform: She reminds him that his grandfather, after all, "wore his Civil War uniform the rest of his life." "Kept having new ones made," interjects a helpful aunt. "He said he had to remind people that brother fought brother," the mother adds piously, for the benefit of the non-family members in the room. I was reminded of that by a passage in ...